It’s November 20, 2015, and time for Friday Yes or No. I ask the questions. I answer them. Control freak? Sure. But as much fun as a 61-1/2 year-old can have on a Friday afternoon.

Q1: After a week in which the people of the United States had to chance to demonstrate their strength and courage in the wake of the Paris terror attacks, are you profoundly disappointed in the behavior of a large chunk of the American public and in political leaders, most – but, alas, not all – of them Republicans?

A1: Yes

Q2: Does it make any sense at all to bar Syrian refugees from this country?

A2: No

Q3: Would you categorize the bashing of American Moslems – some of whom, by the way, are in the armed forces defending this country – as idiotic?

A3: Yes

Q4: Speaking of “idiots,” should there be a picture of Donny Trump next to that word in the dictionary?

A4: Yes

Q5: Also next to the words “horse’s ass,” “moron” and “miserable bastard”?

A5: Yes

Q6: Is that out of your system yet?

A6: No

Q7: Does it make sense for Princeton to revisit the racism of Woodrow Wilson to the point of possibly taking his name off campus buildings?

A7: No

Q8: Wilson was a racist, right?

A8: Yes

Q9: So is the reason not to take his name off buildings the fact that he’s not honored for his racism, but for his thinking about American foreign policy and education, and that his views on race, while seen as abhorrent in 2015, were in the mainstream of American opinion in the 1910s?

A9: Yes

Q10: Don’t you wish you were in Chicago this weekend?

A10: No

Q11: Is that because of the 6-8 inches of snow expected by tomorrow afternoon?

A11: Yes

Q12: Doesn’t that seem a little soon – or is it that all you have to do is say “Chicago” and you understand?

A12: Yes

1. It’s Thursday, November 19, 2015.

2. Next Thursday is Thanksgiving.

3. Right now, it doesn’t seem as though Americans believe they have much reason to be thankful. They’re scared after the Paris terror attacks. They fear Syrian refugees and Mexicans. There are people who would actually vote for Donny Trump, who is so big a horse’s ass that he might win the honor as biggest horse’s ass of both the 20th and 21st centuries.

Trump’s latest idea, by the way, is that he would not rule out requiring all Muslims to register themselves for a national database. My guess is that, when Donny saw movies about World War II, he got the wrong idea about who the good guys were.

President Obama, right now, is literally on the other side of the world from the near-hysteria. He’s on a long-scheduled trip to East Asia, visiting the Philippines and Malaysia. There’s no logical reason he should come home early.

But when he gets back this weekend, he needs to channel his energy to putting down the stupidity and reassuring the rational people of the country.

He needs to tell the American people that, yes, this is a scary world but that the administration is doing all it can to ensure their safety.

He needs to remind them who is responsible for terrorism. It is not someone who prays at a mosque in Brooklyn or Detroit, any more than someone who prays at a church in Seattle or Birmingham or a synagogue in Miami or Chicago. Terrorism is the realm of the sick, the warped, those who seek legitimacy for the evil in their minds and hearts. Adam Lanza, who shot up Sandy Hook Elementary School, is as much a terrorist as Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Both should be roommates in Hell.

The president needs to insult Ted Cruz to his face. Actually, there’s a long line of people who would love to insult that rotted cetriolo to his face. Count me as one.

The president needs to remind people that, if anybody’s keeping score on terrorism, he’s the one who has taken the heat for the drone strikes that have killed suspected plotters – as well, unfortunately, of many innocent people. He’s the one who was on the hook when U.S. bombs last week successfully took out the cancer nicknamed Jihadi John who appeared on video delighting in the execution of American journalists. And yes, when Republicans promised to get the man who plotted September 11, it was President Obama who delivered.

The president needs to put his amazing communicative skills to their ultimate test. At a time when stoking fear and distrust is seen as a way to win the Iowa caucus, he needs to tell the American people that it’s time to stop cowering. It’s time to realize that victory in the war on terror is not about exclusion, but inclusion. It isn’t about making Muslims second-class citizens. It isn’t about mindlessly saying that sending U.S. troops to the deserts of the Middle East will solve everyone’s problems.

He needs to reaffirm what’s great about America. Our diversity. Our freedom. Our sense of shared values.

He needs us to know that he’s on it, as he has always been. President Obama has always said his number one job is keeping the American people safe. If we hang in there with him, we will be.

1. It’s Wednesday, November 18, 2015.

2. We can be nothing but grateful if French police thwarted another horrific terrorist attack with today’s raid in St.-Denis. It’s clear that these perverts have had way too much time to plan attacks on innocent people.

What we seem to be finding out about these hoodlums is that most of them were citizens of France. They were not citizens of Syria who snuck in as part of the wave of refugees.

I doubt that this will have much impact on the Republican ignorati that’s either running for the presidential nomination or governs a state. Their reaction to what happened in Paris – calling for an end to accepting Syrian refugees – is pretty much capitulation to the creeps who launched and supported the attacks.

Those creeps want a world where other religions gang up against Islam. And they would just as soon ignore the hundreds of millions of Muslims who practice their faith in peace and seeking peace.

3. Strangely enough, the announcement that David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox is retiring fits into the appropriate reaction to terror.

Not that Ortiz is retiring. But the announcement harkens back to his comments in the first Red Sox game at Fenway Park after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

He praised the police and then, in front of thousands of people and a live TV audience, said “This is our fucking city, and nobody’s going to take away our freedom.”

We should share Big Papi’s message with Paris. We need defiance, not fear. We need courage, not cowardice. We need to join together and be strong, as Boston did, and not betray our ideals or our principles.

That’s how we’ll take out the trash that killed indiscriminately Friday night, and might have done it again today if police didn’t intervene.

They don’t represent a country or a religion or a race. They represent Hell. We should send them home.

1. It’s Tuesday, November 17, 2015.

2. Who do you think will be the first Republican presidential candidate to propose internment camps for Moslems? My money’s on Ted Cruz.

3. As of now, 27 governors say they won’t let Syrian refugees into their state. The 26 idiot Republicans and one idiot Democrat who are an embarrassment to themselves and their states think that stopping these refugees will foil terrorism on U.S. soil.

As if.

The only they accomplish is give the pillbugs behind Friday’s horror in Paris a propaganda victory. You see, they can see, America is at war with Islam. You can flee, but they hate you, is what these bastards can say. For the weakest, it’s an easy excuse to align with evil.

The truth is that the vetting of refugees has been intense and slow-going. It takes more than a year for someone fleeing the Syrian nightmare to find sanctuary in the United States. Stopping those who want to come here is a heartbreaking and horrible renunciation of all that this country has stood for.

All these governors are doing is giving comfort to the enemy. It is “shameful,” as President Obama said yesterday.

On the other hand, I’m not sure anyone trying to get away from a nation run by Bashar al-Assad would feel a rush of freedom in a state run by Greg Abbott or Scott Walker.

4. Yesterday, I made the analogy that the Paris terrorists are to Islam what bank robbers wearing Yankee caps are to Yankee fans.

The more I think about this, the more I think ISIS and its dupes around the world are like SPECTRE, the evil enterprise that James Bond is constantly trying to foil. While ISIS tries to hide behind selected parts of Islam, it is really just a band of boobs trying to terrorize the planet. Like SPECTRE, I suspect its ultimate goal is some sort of world control; Islam is a convenient cover.

Alas, it will probably take more than one James Bond to wipe out these jerks. But if the world looks at it that way – and understands that ISIS has harmed Muslims the most – it might be easier to coalesce and get rid of them.

1. It’s Monday, November 16, 2015.

2. November is now more than half over. Thanksgiving is next week. Christmas is 39 days away.

3. Republican presidential candidates and media types seem bothered by President Obama’s refusal to use the term “radical Islam” in describing the losers behind the Paris terror attacks.

So let me explain it to them.

There are guys who rob banks wearing New York Yankee hats. You see the interlocking NY in the mug shots.

Are they “criminal Yankee fans?” Does being a Yankee fan inherently make you prone to supporting criminal activity? Should the “good” Yankee fans have to reiterate that they’re not looking to rob every bank in America?

The fact is that the guys wearing the hats have nothing to do with liking or disliking the New York Yankees. They have everything to do with being losers.

More seriously, there are groups and individuals in this country that promote hate and horror. The Ku Klux Klan. Westboro Baptist Church. Warren Jeffs.

We do not call that “radical Christianity.” We do not believe all Christians need to stand up as Christians and make clear that they do not support such hatred and miscreant behavior. We don’t see any need to restrict the building of churches or the wearing of crucifix medals or even putting one of those fish things on the back of their car.

The same applies to Islam. The creatures who brought fear and death to Paris may have claimed to have done so in the religion’s name.

But here’s the thing. The jackasses and those in the Middle East who support them are not the least bit interested in promoting the word of the prophet Muhammad or anything else in support of Islam.

Instead, they’re the losers of society. They felt some slight at some point in their life and decided the world would pay for it, and now they’ve joined others who feel the same way. Instead of respecting woman, as Muslims do, they justify rape. Instead of co-existing with the religions that formed Islam’s foundation, Judaism and Christianity, they seek to obliterate them.

Worst of all, as horrific as the atrocities committed in Paris were, they still pale in comparison to what these pillbugs do to people who worship Allah and adhere to Muhammad’s teachings.

Their trail of bloodshed has killed thousands of devout Muslims through the Middle East and Africa. In Beirut, Nairobi, Baghdad, Cairo, or wherever. They didn’t give a damn who they were killing.

It’s convenient for the losers to hide behind Islam because of the frictions of the world. And it certainly would help if there was some real effort to resolve differences, particularly in the Middle East, that would allow all people of goodwill and different faiths to live in peace.

But calling what these losers practice Islam, even with the descriptive “radical,” is an insult to people who are Moslems. And those Moslems don’t need to take some kind of special role in the fight against this crap. They and we just need to understand that we are brothers and sisters. That people who worship differently still share humanity, and an appreciation of what’s good and beautiful in the world. We just need to work together, and try to understand and respect our differences.

The people who committed the Paris attacks, who inspire other fellow losers around the world, seek a world of nothing. Hate and rejection, perceived or otherwise, has made them lash at everyone and everything.

That’s really not that much different from those who preach hatred in the United States. Hatred toward people of color, women, people of different languages and nationalities and religions and sexual orientation.

All of them fall under the same title. And it has nothing to do with Christianity or Islam.

It’s about being a loser.

1. It’s Saturday, November 14, 2015.

2. The problem is that humans don’t know what awaits them after they die.

My guess is that the pillbugs who inflicted the misery on Parisians last night probably thought there was something better on the other side of living. They were miserable in their current existence for whatever reason, and decided that they wanted one moment of warped glory before moving on. They couldn’t figure out a way to save the world, so they thought they capture some notoriety in trying to destroy it.

They were wretched losers, and they wanted to take others down before their own exit from a life of slights, perceived or real.

Humans don’t know what awaits them after they die. So you can do one of two things. You can actively find out. Or you can live your life in a way that, once the inevitable happens, gives something to the people who remain.

For most of the species, the choice is obvious.

I think we all want to try to make sense of the deaths of 127 people, at last report, whose only offense seemed to be celebrating their lives in one of the world’s most beautiful cities. A lot of them attended a show by an American metal band.

But there is no sense to it. It’s random and maddening, and makes you wonder about the capacity for evil in the world.

Humans don’t know what awaits them after they die. But here’s what they should know: As long as you love in return, your life never ends. You are remembered and revered and mourned. When you blow yourself up in pursuit of some nihilistic aim, you’re just splattered pieces of tissue to get hosed off the floor.

I and you and the people of every race, faith, gender and nationality will think today and in the days to come of those who died. We can’t imagine the pain of parents, friends, lovers and children who are staggered by their loss.

Maybe there’s some paradise the murderers expected as they pulled the trigger on their explosive devices. Maybe they’re right. Humans don’t know what awaits them after they die.

But I hope they rot in Hell.

It’s November 13, 2015, or 11/13/15, the last time the date can be three consecutive odd numbers this century. Next time it happens is January 3, 2105. I won’t be here.

Anyway, it’s time again for Friday Yes or No. I devise questions that I can answer simply and without equivocation. It’s that simple.

Q1: When Donny Trump went on his rant about Dr. Ben Carson being pathological, do you suspect he was off his meds?

A1: Yes

Q2: After questioning the intelligence of Iowans, does a Trump Plaza Des Moines have much chance of succeeding?

A2: No

Q3: Of course it’s not nice to wish death on someone, but don’t you really, really hope the U.S. got ISIS’ “Jihadi John,” the bastard on those videos beheading American journalists and aid workers.

A3: Yes

Q4: And that he rots in hell?

A4: Yes

Q5: In a game I normally don’t care that much about, will I be pulling for Missouri against BYU tomorrow night?

A5: Yes

Q6: Will the success the Missouri football team had in ousting the university’s president for inaction against racist incidents translate to other constructive developments for students?

A6: No

Q7: That’s because this was a push-comes-to-shove moment, and the only times something like a possible strike by a major college team would work is when so much is at stake?

A7: Yes

Q8: Was the cardboard VR device the Times put out last week cool?

A8: Yes

Q9: Will it change journalism?

A9: No

Q10: Is this a good time to go get a Starbucks Oprah Chai in a red holiday season cup, in part to give the middle finger to the war on Christmas putzes?

A10: Yes

1. It’s Thursday, November 12, 2015.

2. It’s two weeks until Thanksgiving.

3. It’s three weeks until Black Friday, the day whose meaning keeps changing.

For the longest time, it was referred to as the kickoff to the holiday season. (Yes, HOLIDAY, you putzes obsessed with “wars” on Christmas.) Stores would open early on Friday morning, say 7 a.m.

Then it became 6 a.m. Then 4 a.m. Then midnight.

Now it’s completely encroaching on Thanksgiving. Walmart and Target plan to open at 6 p.m. that night. Other chain stores follow an hour or so later. And some stores won’t close for the holiday at all.

Does it matter? I wonder.

Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren warned yesterday that there’s too much stuff in his company’s stores. As a result, there will be lots of markdowns. That’s great news if you’re a shopper, not so great news if you’re a shareholder of Macy’s — or any of those other stores that share malls with Macy’s and will have to cut prices themselves to compete.

Here’s the thing: I’m not sure people want to go out to buy stuff. They have a lot of things already. And they don’t want to brave crazy crowds — either during normal sleeping hours or the time when families normally eat Thanksgiving dinner — to buy fodder for a 2017 garage sale.

People have instantaneous ways of satisfying their few must-haves. It’s called Amazon, or one of its online brethren. Why drive to the mall, hassle over parking, try to find a sales clerk and probably get sick from all the germs being spread in a crowded area? The UPS guy will deliver the same thing to you in your pajamas.

It’s not the economy. People are working, for the most part, and they’re willing to spend money. One stroll through the special World Series shop at Citi Field before Game Five is proof that there are folks willing to spend crazy money for the right thing, especially when it’s Mets fans looking for a Wright thing.

It’s just that most things you can buy in a store are not worth the hassle. I don’t know how Macy’s and other merchants solve this problem.

But it’s not going to be by a 40% markdown on acrylic scarfs at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

1. It’s Tuesday, November 10, 2015

2. It sometimes seems as though Missouri aspires to surpass Texas in the dopey department.

There was Ferguson, of course, an incident waiting to happen. A place where African-Americans were systematically put at financial and penal risk by stupid ticket-writing incentives for police. The death of Michael Brown seems almost preordained in that kind of atmosphere.

It’s the home state of Todd Akin, the Republican who believes women’s bodies shut down to prevent pregnancy after a “legitimate rape.” It cost him a Senate seat, but only barely.

And then there was the situation at the state’s largest educational institution, the University of Missouri. Incidents of racial taunts and slurs, of anti-Semitism, of callous administrative disregard for students went unaddressed for months.

What unites states such as Missouri is sports. Especially football. The whole state roots for the Tigers against their foes in the Southeastern Conference, one of the two biggest collegiate sports leagues in the nation.

Thus the stance of the football team to say enough is enough is heroic. But it’s easily understood and definitely requires a modicum of courage. The athletes recognized that, away from the football field, there are those who would just as soon label them as losers and treat them with the same disrespect.

So they took a stance. And the president who ignored these problems is out the door.

A lot of folks, including the respected Times columnist Joe Nocera, say this could be a sign that college athletes are ready to correct some of the ways they are exploited by the system. I don’t know that that’s true – I’m sure a lot of these athletes love their special status at their schools and in their states, and would do nothing to jeopardize it.

What the Missouri football players should be a lesson to the rest of us. We have clout, too. Where we spend our money. What we do with our time. Who we cheer and who we jeer. If we’re willing to stand firm, we can affect change.

There’s an epidemic of stupid in our land. The Missouri football team took a goal-line stand against it, and held.

3. On that note, I wasn’t planning to go to Starbucks today. I have a class to teach at William Paterson University in New Jersey, and I’m preparing for that now. (It’s about writing opinion pieces!)

But because Donny Trump, the disgrace to humanity, is backing the moronic boycott of Starbucks for taking designs off its holiday season cups, I am determined to buy something there.

It’s my stand against stupid, and I get an Oprah Chai in the process.

1. It’s Monday, November 9, 2015

2. I’ve been up since 4:30 a.m. lamenting the stupidity in our lives. I know, being awake at 4:30 because of the world’s stupidity is, in itself, stupid. So maybe this is a case of “Physician, heal thyself.”

But then I think about the Starbucks’ holiday cup “controversy.” And the agitation over the alleged “War on Christmas.” And I think why, oh why, was I born into a world of such overwhelming, overpowering, monumental stupidity.

There are no designs on Starbucks’ 2015 holiday cups. It’s just red with the Starbucks logo. I think I noticed when I stopped at Starbucks on my way home from my parents’ house for the Oprah Chai Latte. But I didn’t spend much more than 5 seconds thinking about it.

Apparently, there are people who did.

There are people who believe that Starbucks, in removing any designs from this cup, are making an anti-Christmas statement. That this coffeehouse chain is throwing down the gauntlet. By not putting a snowflake, or a snowman, or whatever the hell it put on the cups in years past, Starbucks is smacking the faces of Christmas-celebrating people everywhere. Yet one more incursion into the sanctity that is the Christmas season.

BOOM!

That was the sound of my head exploding.

Christmas is not threatened by the lack of a design on a Starbucks cup. Christmas is not threatened by my wishing you a “Happy Holiday” instead of a “Merry Christmas.” Christmas is not threatened by Wal-Mart talking about holiday sales instead of Christmas sales. Christmas is not threatened if a shopping mall doesn’t put up a tree, if a community doesn’t put up a creche, if a public high school choir doesn’t sing “Silent Night,” if preschool kids light menorahs.

There is no one stopping anyone from celebrating Christmas in the United States in 2015. There is no war on Christmas. There is, however, an understanding that there are people who do not celebrate Christmas, and those of us who do want to share the season somehow with those people. These are our neighbors, friends and colleagues. Along with family, these are who we care about.

The holidays are a time for all to celebrate. If you want to be irritated about something as inconsequential as the design on a Starbucks coffee cup, you sure as hell are going to miss out on the real fun and joy that the season brings.